She was there first, shivering despite her warm cloak, so she climbed onto the rocks, sheltering from the bitter wind. Jason came and sat above her. "I leave tomorrow, Melissa. I do not know whether I will return."
"Not return?! But you said even if you failed—"
"They may decide an error was made in elevating me to the rank of Magister. Master Florian warned me today. The Council of Masters does not usually test any but Master candidates; the Academy faculties are considered to have all the knowledge and power to decide who is worthy of Magister rank. Now there is a rift in the Council between the Masters of Academies and those Masters who do not teach—but the latter outnumber the former. Once this matter of renegade Readers is settled, we may see much retesting, with stricter standards."
"Magister Jason, surely you could not fail a retesting."
"I do not think I could, after years of experience. Yet… Master Florian told me that they retested and failed one of his former students, a man of unquestioned powers, the head of the hospital in Termoli. He had been a healer for twenty years and more. They declared him unfit, and ordered him married off. He took poison rather than accept such dishonor to his work. Master Florian is heartsick. And… he did not deliberately tell me, but I caught his thought: I am not so skilled as the healer they failed."
"Magister… you would not—?"
"Kill myself? Who can say what a person would do?
At one time I would have said yes—if the Masters decided that I was unworthy of the work I have been doing for ten years, I would have seen no choice but suicide. But through you I have learned these past few months what your friend Alethia knows about joy and love within an honorable marriage. I do not know, Melissa. May the gods not force such a choice upon me… for I truly do not know what I would do."
He gave a sad little laugh. "A teacher always learns from his students, but you have made me think about things no other student ever has. I will do my best to protect you, but I cannot promise anything. I wish I could promise always to be there to protect you—"
He stopped, as if afraid he had said too much, and got up. "Magister Jason!" Melissa called after him, but he turned and walked back along the pier, not even pausing to say goodbye.
And in the morning he was gone. Melissa prayed for his safe return… although she knew they were selfish prayers. All day she did her duties by rote, hardly Reading lest one of the other healers perceive the turmoil in her mind. "I wish I could promise always to be there to protect you," Jason had said. He had spoken of learning from her about "joy and love within an honorable marriage."
It was like the day she had suddenly discovered that she could Read beneath the surface of things, to see what was inside. An ordinary tree had become a treasure trove, insects crawling beneath its bark, squirrels nesting inside a hollow portion of the trunk, sap flowing—a whole community of life she had never known was there, although she had passed the tree every day.
So, suddenly, she discovered the interior of her relationship with Jason… and knew that she loved him. She had learned from Alethia what a beautiful experience the marriage of two Readers could be. If the Masters failed Jason… and then they failed her… was there any chance that they would be married to one another? Surely Jason could arrange it—oh, surely he could have the woman he loved. He must love her—he had risked much to speak with her, even those few times. He had warned her about the testing—why had she not declared her love? He didn't know she loved him! He must know. He must.
Her thoughts circled endlessly, constantly shoved to the back of her mind in the face of her duties and lessons, only to come forward each time she had a moment's peace. Finally she lay in her lonely bed, thinking it all out one more time before she would allow herself to sleep.
Reading outward, Melissa's restless mind met Phoebe's. The motherly woman who cared for the female trainees was making one last check of her charges before going to sleep herself. //Still awake, Melissa? Is anything wrong?//
//No, Magister Phoebe,// she lied. She didn't know if Phoebe accepted that, or merely respected her right not to discuss a personal problem.
//Then go to sleep, dear. You don't want to be tired for your lessons tomorrow.//
//Yes, Magister.//
She closed her mind to Reading again, and in her internal privacy, remembered. There was so little to remember—long talks, but how many statements that she could interpret as intimations of love?
Her bed began to shake. Another of those annoying tremors—nothing to worry about.
The shaking got worse—the floor heaved, and Melissa was tossed into the air, landing back on her bed in a tangle of bedclothes, her left wrist suffering a harsh blow against the wooden frame. As the bed bucked again, she grasped the frame and was thrown sideways, the bed toppling over on her. There was a terrible roaring, pierced by screams. She started to Read, but found the stark terror of the hospital patients too much to bear. But neither could she bear not to know what was happening. She Read again, and was bombarded with pain—suffocation—the roof had collapsed in the east wing, crushing the patients on the top floor and bringing them and their rooms down onto the orthopedic ward below.
Melissa Read but could not move—no one could. The shocks kept coming, one after another, throwing her hither and yon. There was no way she could scramble to her feet. A heavy wooden wardrobe crashed to the floor, missing her by a hand's span, but heaving a splintered section like a spear into her leg. She screamed in pain, and tried to pull it out as her bedroom turned into a battleground, pieces of wood and shattered crockery flying all around her. The best she could do was try to wrap herself in the bedclothes.
The door of her room burst open with a sharp CRACK! and banged against the wall, slammed shut again, bounced open, and was wrenched off its hinges as the building heaved in a new direction. Smoke sailed in from the hallway—it was winter; there had been fires throughout the building to keep the patients warm—the hospital was on fire!
Melissa began to cough and choke, her own body's heaving so distracting that she missed the point at which the ground stopped billowing beneath her, and everything settled into pain and fire and smoky haze. Finally she realized that the earthquake was over—but she was trapped! Her room had no window. Smoke was pouring through the door. Pulling the blanket over her nose and mouth, she dropped to the floor, where the air would be best, but there seemed to be no good air. She tried to crawl, her leg stinging where the splintered wood had pierced it. It was not a severe wound… but that did not matter. She could not escape the smoke. Her eyes burned. Her lungs burned. The whole world was burning—and then it disappeared into blackness.
Chapter Two
A satisfying rumble shook the ground beneath Torio as he Read this section of the fault settle into a more stable configuration. "Perfect!" he said aloud, and Lord Wulfston dropped his concentration and became Readable as a human presence once again. He could not be Read further, for he was a savage Adept, capable of causing the earth to shift—with proper guidance.
The two men were seated cross-legged, hands joined, on the floor of an abandoned house several miles inside the Aventine border. For winter travel they were dressed in heavy woolens and furs, but even so Torio shivered …no… he was not shivering—the ground was moving again, only moments after their successful effort!
He Read the fault, but it was secure—and the shock waves were coming toward it, not away from it. Not the minor quake they had just set off, but a major one somewhere farther away—could it be the very catastrophe they were seeking to avoid?